IDF destroys Hezbollah tunnel that crossed into Israel, steps up airstrikes
Barrage of 25 rockets fired at Kiryat Shmona, launchers used in earlier Haifa attack destroyed; military says strike killed chief of Hezbollah’s logistical HQ
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
Israeli forces have demolished a small Hezbollah tunnel that crossed into Israeli territory from Lebanon, the military announced Tuesday, as its ground operation north of the border continued to target the terror group’s infrastructure.
According to the Israel Defense Forces, the 20-meter-long tunnel had no exit in Israeli territory, and its path crossed the UN-recognized Blue Line by about 10 meters, in the western sector of the border, near the Lebanese village of Marwahin, just across from the Israeli community of Zar’it.
No towns were ever under any threat by the tunnel, the military said
According to Israeli military assessments, Hezbollah began the construction of the tunnel about two years ago, and it was quickly identified by the IDF. The military said it wanted to keep tabs on the tunnel as it was being built, rather than reveal to Hezbollah that it had intelligence of the underground route.
The tunnel was physically located by commandos during raids in southern Lebanon several months ago, though the military stressed that it was previously known to the IDF and it had full control over the area.
The military said troops searched the tunnel and found weapons inside, including explosives and anti-tank missiles.
Now that the IDF is operating in southern Lebanon with larger forces, it said it took the opportunity to demolish the tunnel.
According to the IDF, there are no other tunnels known to cross into Israel from Lebanon.
Meanwhile, the IDF said Hezbollah launched some 180 rockets from Lebanon at northern Israel on Tuesday, including a barrage of some 25 projectiles fired in the evening at Kiryat Shmona.
According to the military, some of the rockets fired at Kiryat Shmona were intercepted, while others impacted in the area. There were no reports of injuries or major damage in that attack.
Some of the rocket launchers used by Hezbollah to fire 105 projectiles at Haifa earlier in the day were struck by an Israeli Air Force drone, the military said, adding that it carried out several strikes against Hezbollah buildings and anti-tank missile launch posts in southern Lebanon over the past day.
After the barrage, the IDF Home Front Command issued stricter guidelines in several cities near Haifa, preventing schools from operating in Kiryat Ata, Kiryat Bialik, Kiryat Yam, and Kiryat Motzkin.
Schools will stay open in Haifa itself, provided that a bomb shelter can be reached quickly enough, the IDF said.
Airstrike kills chief of Hezbollah’s logistics center
Overnight, the IDF said it struck a weapons depot and another Hezbollah site in Beirut, and Monday night, the military said a drone strike was carried out against a school in southern Lebanon’s Tayr Harfa, where a group of Hezbollah operatives were spotted.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Tuesday that 50 operatives and at least six top commanders in Hezbollah’s so-called Southern Front were killed in a wide wave of airstrikes in southern Lebanon the previous day.
The Southern Front, responsible for the terror group’s military activity in south Lebanon, was commanded by Ali Karaki, who was killed alongside Hezbollah terror chief Hassan Nasrallah last month.
“The terrorists we killed yesterday are the commanders and terrorists who were set to — on the day that the order would be given — infiltrate Israel, into towns in the north, to murder and kidnap Israeli civilians,” Hagari said.
A separate strike on Monday in Beirut killed the head of Hezbollah’s logistical headquarters, Suhail Hussein Husseini, the IDF said. He was a member of Hezbollah’s Jihad Council, the terror group’s top military body.
“Husseini played a crucial role in weapon transfers between Iran and Hezbollah and was responsible for distributing the advanced weaponry among Hezbollah’s units, overseeing both the transportation and allocation of these arms,” the IDF said.
The military said that he was “responsible for the budgeting and logistical management of Hezbollah’s most sensitive projects, including the organization’s war plans and other special operations, such as coordinating terrorist attacks against the State of Israel from Lebanon and Syria.”
The military said the headquarters also included Hezbollah’s R&D, which is responsible for the manufacture of precision-guided missiles.
On the ground, troops of the Golani Brigade captured a Hezbollah fighting position in southern Lebanon, located in an olive grove and an adjacent home, the IDF said.
The military said the troops found a primed mortar aimed at Israel, ammunition, tunnel infrastructure, and resting areas for the Hezbollah operatives.
Inside the home, the IDF said the soldiers found a cache of weapons, including firearms, anti-tank missiles, and other equipment.
The IDF said the equipment and site would have been used to ambush Israeli soldiers and attack towns in northern Israel.
450 Hezbollah operatives killed in week of operations
According to fresh IDF assessments on Tuesday, some 450 Hezbollah operatives had been killed by troops and airstrikes amid the past week of ground operations. Four IDF divisions are currently operating in Lebanese villages along the border, the latest being deployed on Monday night.
The IDF’s 98th Division summarized a week of operations in southern Lebanon, reporting that its troops had killed over 200 Hezbollah operatives in several villages adjacent to the Israeli border.
The elite formation of paratrooper and commando units, joined by the 7th Armored Brigade and elite Yahalom combat engineering unit, were the first Israeli forces to enter Lebanon when the official ground operations began on September 30.
The IDF said the division had demolished several tunnels and located hundreds of weapons in villages close to the border, which were intended to have been used by Hezbollah to attack northern Israel.
More than 100 tons of explosives have been used by the division to demolish Hezbollah sites above and below ground, according to military sources.
The division, which previously battled Hamas in Gaza for months, said Hezbollah is a different enemy from Hamas, but not necessarily stronger.
The division has found Hezbollah to be a far more organized fighting force than Hamas, but largely operating above ground and not in tunnels like the terror group in Gaza. Hezbollah also has more advanced weapons and better fortifications, the division has identified.
Still, the division said it has the upper hand and has been successful with its operations.
Last week, six members of the Egoz Commando Unit were killed during a fierce battle with Hezbollah operatives, and another three paratroopers were killed in separate incidents that same day.
Separately Tuesday evening, in Syria, an alleged Israeli airstrike on Damascus targeted a top Hezbollah official in the terror group’s Unit 4400, the Saudi news outlet Al-Hadath reported.
Unit 4400 is tasked with delivering weapons from Iran and its proxies to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Syria’s state-run SANA news agency, citing a military source, reported that seven civilians were killed and 11 others were wounded in the strike, which hit a residential and commercial building in the Mezzeh district of the capital.
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In addition to the casualties, the strike caused “significant material damage,” it said. It added that rescue forces are still working to extract people from under the rubble.
Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel — which rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria — is believed to have carried out hundreds of strikes, mainly targeting army positions and Iran-backed fighters including from Hezbollah.
Hezbollah began launching missiles at Israel exactly a year ago in support of its ally Hamas following the attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.
Hezbollah’s top leaders have repeatedly stated over the last year that the group would not stop its fire until a Gaza ceasefire was reached, but that appeared to change Tuesday after deputy leader Naim Qassem expressed support for efforts to reach an end to the fighting without mentioning the war in the enclave.
Israel stepped up its strikes on Hezbollah in recent weeks as it seeks to push the terror group away from the border in accordance with a 2006 UN resolution.
The escalation followed Israel’s decision last month to make the return of northern residents to their homes an official war aim. Some 60,000 residents were evacuated from northern towns on the Lebanon border shortly after Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, out of fear Hezbollah would carry out a similar attack.
Attacks on northern Israel have resulted in the deaths of 26 civilians in Israel. In addition, 33 IDF soldiers and reservists have died in cross-border skirmishes and in the ground operation launched in southern Lebanon in late September.
Two soldiers in northern Israel have been killed in a drone attack from Iraq, and there have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
Hezbollah has named 516 members — including Nasrallah — who have been killed by Israel during the war, mostly in Lebanon but also some in Syria. Another 94 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have also been killed.
These numbers have not been consistently updated since Israel began its new offensive against Hezbollah in September, including the ground operation in which the military says at least 450 Hezbollah operatives have been killed.
AFP contributed to this report.
